Whites, Gays, Viet Nam and Food

Some days, a movie just hits my brain exactly right.  The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia was that movie today.  It’s like Hoarders, Intervention and Locked Up all in one movie.  It’s a train wreck I can’t look away from.  I highly suggest it.

The Adonis Factor is a movie about gay men’s body issues.  It’s sorta a movie full of DUHHHH.  Lots of hot men, talking about their bodies. Blah Blah.

National Geographic: Vietnam’s Unseen War: Pictures from the Other Side is covering the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective, photos and film.  It is interesting but also a lot of dead people pictures.  I knew it was coming, but I just hate seeing so many dead. 

Ingredients- A discussion of the food industry and how the lack of connection with our food is changing our lives, and not for the better.  We eat food that isn’t good, that is shipped and trucked and gross.  I thought I would enjoy this movie, but it is the same damn movie as Food, Inc, etc. 

Black, Latin American, Iranian, Silly and Crazy

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company A story about Melvin VanPeebles’ life.  Melvin is a black filmmaker who was raised in the United States and then moved to France in order to make movies and write.  It is a great story about a man who is both well known and not at all known.  He is the kind of man that lives his life to his own specifications, doing what he wants while loving the people around him. 

South of the Border is an Oliver Stone movie about the leaders of many Latin American countries which have been demonized in the US media.  I am of course focused more on how Oliver Stone uses his interpreters; including waving them over and expecting them to interpret while they are walking along the road.  It’s interesting how this movie explores how the Latin American leaders have been vilified in the media and their people seem to want them there.  One of them said “Now, the leaders of Latin America look like their leaders.” 

Frontline: A Death in Tehran is the story of Neda, a woman who was killed in Iran during the protests following the election.  It is very sad to watch her die, and then to hear about the aftermath.  Her boyfriend was arrested and jailed because he spoke out against the Iranian regime after her death.  Iran’s politics are very sad. 

Up next, Picture Me following the life of a model as she tries to make it in the world of high fashion models.  She seems like a well put together and intelligent woman, who knows that this isn’t a lifetime job, but more of a thing she can do while she is young.  It’s interesting that in the beginning, she is so excited about an $80,000 check, and by the middle of the movie she gets an $112,000 check and it doesn’t feel exciting anymore. You can see that she starts feeling like she is the cash cow for her and her boyfriend. It is a movie that shows how modeling is a fun job, but like any job you aren’t really appreciated for your whole self, but mostly for your body.  Many of the models said over and over they felt like robots.  

Rank is a discussion of the Professional Bull Riding association.  I am having a hard time with this movie because I can’t watch people get stepped on.  The fame goes to the riders, but the “bull fighting clowns” are really more athletic and amazing.  They put their lives on the line over and over.  I will finish this later, because I am not going to be able to finish it today. 

Two and 3/4 days.

We begin today with The Brandon Teena Story.  I have been avoiding this movie like the plague, because I know the story and I hate hearing about it.  So, I am watching it, and it just underscores how people are intolerant of the things they don’t understand.  The murderers seem so blasé about it.  “Oh, I raped her, I mean, had sex with her”.  The cops clearly don’t care…it’s disgusting.  “There was this negro sitting on the floor with a coffee table on its lap”.  Its? Negro? This is a story from the 1990’s, not the 1950’s.  Also, I think it is horribly sad that all the attention is focused on Brandon, and that we learn so little about the two other people that died that night, Phillip and Lisa.  While the reason they died was intolerance over Brandon’s gender identity, they are no less important, and no less dead. 

Next up today is The Garden about a group of farmers who worked a 14 acre field in the middle of

South Central LA.

  They were evicted when the city decided to sell the land that had been vacated for years back to the original owner.  The city council person worked with a community organizer to bring in a soccer field.  It’s crazy. 372 people worked in this garden. All of these guys remind me of my grandpa.  I can’t imagine what would have happened if he lived in a city and found a wonderful place to grow his food and they evicted him.  I think the saddest thing about this movie is the fact that the Black community organizer goes against the Latino farmers.  At one point she says that the farmers are “raping the community” because they have a farmer’s market.  This movie is heartbreaking.  That is all.

Next day…The Philosopher Kings is about janitors working at universities around the country. One of the rules I live by is “If you want to see the truth of a person’s personality, watch how they treat wait staff and janitors.”  This movie shows how many of them are very intelligent and insightful people.  Many of these people are so proud of the work they do, with good reason.  We should take the time everyday to thank the people around us, who work in obscurity.  I guess that how I feel is, if you see someone doing a job that you would never want to do in a million years, you should thank them.

Accelerating America  is about a school in Rhode Island where troubled kids can complete 2 grades in one year.  It allows kids who are behind to catch up to the other kids their age.  It highlights the lives of three kids, all who have messed up lives.  One has three brothers who are all in and out of jail, one whose family left her and moved to the Dominican Republic without even telling her they were leaving, and one whose father moved to New Mexico and wouldn’t give his son his phone number.  Two of the three have now graduated and are planning college, while one dropped out and had a baby.  It was interesting and sad, like most.

Columbine: Understanding Why is a psychological autopsy of the Columbine massacre.  Really, nothing new comes out of it.  The boys were angry and wanted to make a point about bullying, combined with mental illness.  No shocker.

No End In Sight is about the Iraq War and the complete mismanagement and mistakes made by the administration in the beginning, including how the decisions made to disband the Iraqi Army and the Ba’ath Party caused the insurgency, because if they would have gone about that in a more reasonable manner they wouldn’t have ended up with tens of thousands of people without jobs, but with easy access to weapons.  As well, the administration was told about the caches of weapons that were available to the insurgents and did nothing. 

Fagbug.  A lesbian grad student in upstate New York who had a rainbow sticker on her bug had “u r gay” and “fag” spray painted onto it.  It’s a little self-serving, and when people tell her that they think she is making the story into more than it is she gets really upset.  She wanted the crime listed as a hate crime, which is a little much.  She is going on a cross country road trip to get support.  I hate shit like this, but at the same time it makes me want to find some way to have people support me on a long trip.  FagSB! The movie goes from being a good idea to just a one-sided bitch fest about how she isn’t being supported by the gays.  I think part of the problem is that she is comparing herself to true hate crimes, like people who are murdered.  Not so much lady…your car was spray painted.  Yes, it sucks. Yes it could be scary,  but you are making tooo much out of it.  Also, the fact that three people at hotels requested you move it isn’t really that big of a deal. 

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired is a discussion of the Roman Polanski case and his going AWOL to Europe.  The poor girl who he raped said that her life was ruined because of the media exposure, and that the actual rape was less distressing than the media exposure. While an adult having sex with a young girl is never acceptable, okay or something that should be tolerated the way that his case was handled was clearly wrong.  The judge wanted publicity, so continued to make decisions based on the media reports rather than the law. Not acceptable. 

Tuesday; Forgiving the Hot Earth and Humans

The Power of Forgiveness, a group of stories about people who are willing to forgive.  From North Ireland, to the Amish who forgave the man who shot many of their children, to a man who forgave the young man who shot his son.  Interesting stories about how people’s lives have been changed for the better by forgiveness. 

Everything’s Cool…global warming! Whooo hooo for happy movies! This is another movie that is trying to prove a point, but be “unbiased” by interviewing a few people on the opposite side.  It wasn’t bad, but also not the best thing I have ever watched. It basically is a rehash of every other climate change movie you have ever seen. 

National Geographic: Incredible Human Machine, can you guess what it is about? A day in the life of a human body, including what bones are made of, there are 45 miles of nerves, etc. etc.  It’s interesting, but as usual Nat Geo is a little dry.  They try to keep it interesting, but really it comes across as a Biology class.  If I was still in High School Biology, this would be an awesome movie.  Sadly, I am not in HS and this movie was boring.

Monday; Taliban, Lepers, Vinyl, Singers and Nazis

First up this Monday is Frontline; Behind Taliban Lines.  It is interesting to see how the Taliban works, and it seems like the group that this journalist got involved with are the Keystone Kops of the Taliban.  They can’t seem to get their shit together enough to figure out what to do.  I’m sure they can be violent and do great damage, but really they can’t seem to get themselves together enough to do any real damage.  It’s interesting that they all refer to the Americans/Coalition Forces as “the un-believers”. \

Triumph at Carville: A Tale of Leprosy in America.  Who knew there is a leper colony in America? In Carville, LA there is this hospital that has been operating for since the 1920’s working with people with leprosy.  It has been at the forefront of attitude and treatment of leprosy and is credited with finding the cure.  A lot of interviews with the employees, townspeople, patients and families of patients covering how the treatment and attitude toward the disease has changed over the years. 

Blue Vinyl is a diatribe against vinyl.  I get it, but nothing makes me dislike a documentary more than the holier than thou, this is bad and will cause cancer and we aren’t even going to try to present a non-biased argument at all.  Blarg. 90some minutes of preaching is annoying.

Next up is Afghan Star, which is following the contestants in an “American Idol” type of contest in Afghanistan.  One woman danced and uncovered her hair, and it was like she had flopped her tits out.  It was insane.  The song lyrics are also very silly, “The bend of your eyebrow is like the sting of a scorpion”.  I don’t know what that even means, but I can’t stop watching this.  I am waiting for the dancer lady to die.  Wow, they are showing old movies of Afghanistan in the 80’s when there was more freedom. That is very sad.

Inheritance is the very sad story of a woman who found out her father was a Nazi that was hung for war crimes, because he had been the commander of a concentration camp. This story is her going to meet one of the women that had been his “housekeeper” (read housekeeper as slave in his house”.  It is incredibly sad to see how one man destroyed not only his daughter and his wife (who committed suicide) but also the family of the woman he had held (her husband committed suicide as well).  All in all, WWII was a shit sandwich and we should be careful that we don’t go down that road again (that is a message to you teabaggers).

Friday: Jihad, the suburbs, and nerdy hip hop

I’m back! I took a loooong break from my documentary watching, but now I am back! The first movie today is The End of America, which is based on the book of the same name by Naomi Wolf.  I would recommend this movie if you don’t mind freaking out a bit.  She makes 9 points about how America after 9/11 is becoming a closed society and shows the parallels between America and Nazi Germany.  It’s a lecture based documentary, so it’s not thrilling, but it is very interesting. 

American Jihadist  follows a man from DC who converted to Islam and has fought with Islamic groups for most of his life.  He currently lives in Bosnia with his wife and kids.  It really makes it easy to understand how little things in life can lead you down a path that is against the norm. 

Radiant City is all about the sprawling of North America. It is interesting, because it is a Canadian movie but most of the information applies to Canada and the US.  It talks about how the suburbs are really destroying the fabric of life.  It’s sad to watch the kids who are scheduled everyday.  So, it’s sorta messed up because this entire documentary is fake.  Not ok. I dislike.

Nerdcore Rising…I enjoyed.  It is a big ole nerd fest, which I always enjoy.  Funny movie about a guy who is doing nerdy hip hop.  It’s pretty fun to watch.  The movie is entertaining and silly, which is about what it should be.  The hiphop is…ok. 

Secrets, Life, Prison, Voting

Secrecy is a movie about the US Government’s secrecy programs.  It costs almost 8 billion dollars to keep the secrets secret.  That seems like a decent place to do some deficit reduction, but that’s just me.  Movies like this make me hate the government.  I can’t even say much about it, because it just makes me crazy that the government will keep things hidden rather than admit things.  Even worse is when they say something is classified for security reasons and then it comes to light that it was just to hide their mistake. BLARG!

Up Syndrome is the story of two kids who grew up as best friends, and are now adults.  One of them is a man with Down Syndrome.  I am always afraid to start movies like this, because so often the person with the disability is treated like they aren’t a real person, but just their disability.  Instead, the director of the movie (who is the best friend) treats him like he is just another guy, making fun of him, teasing him, talking about women, doing all the things that guys do together.  The movie isn’t set up to exploit this man, but instead is just an honest account of their friendship.  You can sense the love that these two men have for each other, and while the movie drags a bit in places, it is a respectful portrayal of the life of a young man with Down’s syndrome and his relationships.  It is the coming of age story of a young man, graduating school, trying to find a job, enjoying time with friends, girlfriend dumping him; he just happens to have a disability.  I am impressed with how the documentarian did such a good job of making him into the guy next door, and his Down’s Syndrome is a piece of his life not the whole of it.  I think the most touching part of the movie is when Rene, the subject of the movie, is given the chance to drive for the first time, and he just laughs the whole time so clearly enjoying himself.  Rene’s dream was to be a cop, and so he is driving around this totally empty area and the director says “Look at you, crusin’ like a cop”, and the smile on his face is so amazing.  On a personal note.  I miss you Roy, Brandon and Carlos. 

Deadline is a story about the death penalty, using the Governor of  Illinois deciding to abolish the practice in his state as the start of the story.  It isn’t really an anti-capital punishment movie, but more about how it should be used more sparingly. Seriously, how did we elect George W?  There were more executions in Texas in five years (1995-2000) than there were in the entire United States from 1976-2000 (143). 

So Goes The Nation is a discussion of the ways that Ohio is an important state during Presidential elections.  The movie follows both sides during the 2008 election.  It’s a lot of blah blah politics blah blah.  It also shows how underhanded both sides are.  I should stop watching movies about the government, because right now I am getting annoyed.  Also, I get that you have to accept volunteers, whomever shows up, but the Democrats need to get more people that aren’t so freaky looking or socially awkward.  Wow, a Republican strategist just said they target the elite to get them to come to vote for Bush, and then those people will tell the people under them who to vote for.  Yep, Obama is the elitist! You know, it is so sad to me to watch young people screaming horrible things to each other, over a presidential election.  Something they really have no control over. I’m watching this movie like I don’t know who is gonna win. Seriously, I’m getting all excited that Kerry is ahead, and then I remember he didn’t win.